The Great Ape (by Michael Crichton)
The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda.
Every one of us has a sense of the world, and we all know that this sense is in part given to us by what other people
and society tell us; in part generated by our emotional state, which we project outward; and in part by our
genuine perceptions of reality.
National Geographic Magazine Preserve Our Planet "Eden at the End of the World" (2008) via
If Eden is a fantasy that never existed, and mankind wasn’t ever noble and kind and loving, if we didn’t fall from grace, then what about the rest of the religious tenets? What about salvation, sustainability, and judgment day? What about the coming environmental doom from fossil fuels and global warming, if we all don’t get down on our knees and to the God of sustainability? Religions think they know it all.
One of the problems with fundamentalists is that they have no perspective on themselves. They never recognize that their way of thinking is just one of many other possible ways of thinking, which may be equally useful or good. On the contrary, they believe their way is the right way, everyone else is wrong; they are in the business of salvation, and they want to help you to see things the right way. They want to help you be saved. They are totally rigid and totally uninterested in opposing points of view. In our modern complex world, fundamentalism is dangerous because of its rigidity and its imperviousness to other ideas.
Remember, the nut on the sidewalk carrying the placard that predicts the end of the world, doesn’t quit when the world doesn’t end on the day he expects. He just changes his placard, sets a new doomsday date, and goes back to walking the streets.
We know from history that religions tend to kill people. Why? Because it became politicized. We also need to get rid of the religion of environmentalism. Today it is said we live in a secular society in which many people-the best people, the most enlightened people-do not believe in any religion. You may not believe in God, but you still have to believe in something that gives meaning to your life, and shapes your sense of the world. Such a belief is religious.
One of the most powerful religions in the Western World today has become environmentalism, as a 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths. There’s an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there’s a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability.
There is no Eden. There never was. That anyone still believes it, 200 years after Rousseau, shows the tenacity of religious myths, their ability to hang on in the face of centuries of fractural contradiction (sic mine). In short, the romantic view of the natural world as a blissful Eden is only held by people who have no actual experience of nature. People who live in nature are not romantic about it at all.
Certain organizations spin their case to present it in the strongest way. What more and more groups are doing is putting out is lies, just to get their way. We need an organization that will be ruthless about acquiring verifiable results, that will fund identical research projects to more than one group, and that will make everybody in this field get honest fast.
If we allow science to become politicized, then we are lost. We will enter the Internet version of the dark ages, an era of shifting fears and wild prejudices, transmitted to people who don’t know any better.
*From a statement by Michael Crichton on Environmentalism Is A Religion:
https://www.michaelhoskinson.com/michael-crichton-environmentalism-is-a-religion/
dr. π (pi)
.
Every one of us has a sense of the world, and we all know that this sense is in part given to us by what other people
and society tell us; in part generated by our emotional state, which we project outward; and in part by our
genuine perceptions of reality.
National Geographic Magazine Preserve Our Planet "Eden at the End of the World" (2008) via
If Eden is a fantasy that never existed, and mankind wasn’t ever noble and kind and loving, if we didn’t fall from grace, then what about the rest of the religious tenets? What about salvation, sustainability, and judgment day? What about the coming environmental doom from fossil fuels and global warming, if we all don’t get down on our knees and to the God of sustainability? Religions think they know it all.
One of the problems with fundamentalists is that they have no perspective on themselves. They never recognize that their way of thinking is just one of many other possible ways of thinking, which may be equally useful or good. On the contrary, they believe their way is the right way, everyone else is wrong; they are in the business of salvation, and they want to help you to see things the right way. They want to help you be saved. They are totally rigid and totally uninterested in opposing points of view. In our modern complex world, fundamentalism is dangerous because of its rigidity and its imperviousness to other ideas.
Remember, the nut on the sidewalk carrying the placard that predicts the end of the world, doesn’t quit when the world doesn’t end on the day he expects. He just changes his placard, sets a new doomsday date, and goes back to walking the streets.
We know from history that religions tend to kill people. Why? Because it became politicized. We also need to get rid of the religion of environmentalism. Today it is said we live in a secular society in which many people-the best people, the most enlightened people-do not believe in any religion. You may not believe in God, but you still have to believe in something that gives meaning to your life, and shapes your sense of the world. Such a belief is religious.
One of the most powerful religions in the Western World today has become environmentalism, as a 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths. There’s an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there’s a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability.
There is no Eden. There never was. That anyone still believes it, 200 years after Rousseau, shows the tenacity of religious myths, their ability to hang on in the face of centuries of fractural contradiction (sic mine). In short, the romantic view of the natural world as a blissful Eden is only held by people who have no actual experience of nature. People who live in nature are not romantic about it at all.
Certain organizations spin their case to present it in the strongest way. What more and more groups are doing is putting out is lies, just to get their way. We need an organization that will be ruthless about acquiring verifiable results, that will fund identical research projects to more than one group, and that will make everybody in this field get honest fast.
If we allow science to become politicized, then we are lost. We will enter the Internet version of the dark ages, an era of shifting fears and wild prejudices, transmitted to people who don’t know any better.
*From a statement by Michael Crichton on Environmentalism Is A Religion:
https://www.michaelhoskinson.com/michael-crichton-environmentalism-is-a-religion/
dr. π (pi)
.